1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system in which an emergency occurrence inside a house of an aged person is notified to the outside, and particularly, to a system which realizes improvement in quickness, sureness, and so on.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japan has seen a gradual increase in a ratio of, what is called, an elderly population to the total population, this elderly population ratio exceeding a ratio of those except aged people to the total population, and this has presented indication that a so-called aging society is actually coming at hand year by year.
In view of this social situation, various kinds of services for supporting the lives of aged people have recently been practiced on various levels, such as on a governmental level, a non-governmental level, and so on.
Specifically, a so-called visiting service is one of the examples. In this service, patrolling staff regularly visit aged people who live alone to give advice to them on their worries and inconveniences and to make sure that nothing is wrong with the lives of the aged people.
However, it is often difficult to secure a sufficient number of patrolling staff members in the services like the above due to various reasons. Moreover, while this shortage of the staff is a general tendency, the number of aged people requiring these services is on the increase. Under these conditions, it is difficult to provide sufficient services to them.
There also exists a problem that consideration should be fully given to privacy protection of aged people in view of the basic nature of the visiting services mentioned above that the patrolling staff actually visit the houses of the aged people.
Furthermore, especially, an aged person who lives alone and the like often has difficulty in getting in contact with a medical institution or making an emergency call for an ambulance when he/she is suddenly taken ill. Moreover, even if he/she manages to make a call, the line of the other party may be busy, and in such a case, such a situation may occur that he/she has difficulty even in calling again. Furthermore, even if he/she can reach the other party, such a situation may also occur that it is difficult for an appropriate and quick measure to be taken since he/she cannot talk well enough to make the other party understand him/her.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a supporting system for aged people using an IC card, an emergency notification box, and a receiving device which are able to support aged people in leading smooth lives while securing their privacy.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a supporting system for aged people using an IC card, an emergency notification box, and a receiving device which realize quick and sure notification of an emergency occurrence in houses of aged people to nearest institutions concerned.
According to a first aspect of the present invention,
provided is a supporting system for aged people using an IC card, comprising:
an emergency notification box for reading information on an IC card and sending out the information as an emergency notification signal to an external part via a public telephone line; and
a receiving device for receiving the emergency notification signal sent out from the emergency notification box via the public telephone line and performing notification processing.
In the configuration as described above, the IC card is inserted into the emergency notification box so that a signal for automatically notifying an emergency is sent out to the receiving device disposed in the external part. Thereby, an emergency occurrence in a house of an aged person can be quickly and surely notified to a nearest institution concerned while privacy of the aged person is secured.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, provided is an emergency notification box, comprising:
an IC card reader for reading information on an inserted IC card;
a controlling section for processing the information on the IC card which is obtained by the IC card reader to enable the information to be sent out to a notification destination stored in advance by including the information in a predetermined emergency notification signal; and
a communication section for sending out the emergency notification signal outputted by the controlling section via a public telephone line.
According to a third aspect of the present invention,
provided is a receiving device which is structured to extract necessary information from an emergency notification signal and notify the extracted information to a user, when the emergency notification signal is inputted via a public telephone line.